We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Laura Pursell. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Laura below.

Laura, thanks for joining us, excited to have you contributing your stories and insights. Learning the craft is often a unique journey from every creative – we’d love to hear about your journey and if knowing what you know now, you would have done anything differently to speed up the learning process.

My dad was a pianist/composer/professor Bill Pursell, so I grew up surrounded by all kinds of music – classical, pop, country, etc. But I didn’t really find my voice until I was in my 20’s, and that was by working with all these jazz greats I was introduced to once I moved to LA. I learned on the fly, while singing with Frank Sinatra’s guitar player (Ron Anthony), Sarah Vaughn’s pianist (George Gaffney), the guitarist from The Dinah Shore Show (Barry Zweig), and one of the greatest drummers of all time (Earl Palmer). They taught me everything about time, tone, “getting in and getting out” (that was Earl!) and phrasing. I had such reverence for these guys, and when I began working with my Dad in my 30’s, he was blown away by all I had learned.

I got my performing chops pretty quickly because I was lucky enough to play in front of live audiences with these guys. They’d ask me to sit in at clubs and restaurants, and to be able to do that, I had to have a bunch of standards in my back pocket – songs from the Great American Songbook (Gershwin, Porter, Berlin, Mercer). So, I made it my job to learn these songs.

When I started recording, however, that wasn’t enough. I needed to be a musician. If you’ve been around for a while, you get hip to all the awful “chick singer” jokes that fly around (“How does a singer change a light bulb?
She stands on a chair, takes hold of the bulb, and waits for the whole world to revolve around her.”) I was NOT going to be the butt of any of those jokes!

I needed to be able to understand harmony, how to learn motifs and phrases quickly, and I needed to be able to control my vibrato. I also needed to learn theory to be able to navigate arrangements, and I needed to be able to read music. So I dove in to vocal lessons to increase my range and I took piano and music theory lessons. And songwriting workshops. That’s something I continue to this day.

I wish that I had gone to music school or majored in music when I was in college – that would have given me a good 10 years I didn’t have otherwise. Had I done that, I would have been more proficient on piano and guitar. But I’ve always been a late bloomer, and you can’t rewind your life.

Laura, love having you share your insights with us. Before we ask you more questions, maybe you can take a moment to introduce yourself to our readers who might have missed our earlier conversations?

I’ve been a writer all my life. After recording dozens and dozens of other artists’ music, I decided to write my own songs, using my own experiences. I’ve had such a colorful life and there’s so much material there!

I wrote “Three Miles from Christmas Eve” based on what I’ve been living through since relocating to Nashville 4 years ago. When my father died from Covid, my life as I was living it in LA came to an abrupt end. I left my home, my husband, my friends and my job to take care of my father’s estate and legacy. 6 months became a year, then 2 years, then 3…I lost any sense of “home” and I had to redefine what that means.

So this song is about coming home for Christmas Eve, wherever home may be:

“Three miles til I see your face, three miles til I’m at the gate…”

The singer isn’t sure about what’s waiting at the gate. She may have waited too long to return. But we hope the gate is open!

I took the song to producer and co-writer Stephan Oberhoff, who helped shape it and turn it into something much bigger than I had even imagined. I’ve had people text and call me after hearing the song, to let me know how much it means to them, how personal it is, how much they relate to it.

I released the song as part of an EP compilation of 5 other re-mastered Christmas tracks I recorded 24 years ago at the famous Bradley’s Barn in Mt. Juliet, TN. The title of the EP is “Need a Little Christmas” and it’s available on all streaming platforms, and on my website, laurapursell.com.

My hope is that this single becomes a holiday classic in the years to come. It’s a universal message of hope and healing.

Can you share a story from your journey that illustrates your resilience?

I don’t know where I inherited my resilience but I am so grateful to have it.

I moved to LA from Nashville in my 20’s to pursue acting. For 20+ years I did dozens of plays, shorts, web series, a few stints in TV, an MTV video with “Weird Al” Yankovic, a Netflix show with Ru Paul. I also wrote an award-winning one-woman show about growing up in Nashville, “The Pope of Jocelyn Hollow”.

But living the creative life in LA and trying to pay your rent is absolutely brutal. So I took every singing and acting job I could get – weddings, bar mitzvah’s, funerals, birthdays, casinos, singing demos for songwriters, children’s theater, even children’s parties where I had to dress up in costumes and sing Disney songs while performing magic tricks. I did all this while temping at entertainment law firms.

And music was a constant through it all. I would have acting droughts where absolutely nothing was happening, but singing was constant. I could always go sit in with any number of legendary jazz greats at a local club or restaurant, rehearse with my band, or write songs.

Around 2000 I started recording the first of 5 full-length albums with my father Bill Pursell, under the Netcom Music label formed by my uncle Ray Clawson. Becoming a legitimate musician was very important to me, so I dove into music theory, piano, guitar and singing lessons so that I could hold my own with the musicians, most of whom were much older and so much more experienced. Self-education paid off in a myriad of ways.

When I lost my father to Covid in 2020, all I had left to lean on was my music. I relied on it, and it sustained me through unimaginable moments of grief. I took my music to memory-care living facilities and nursing homes and I saw the effect it had on people. Patients with Alzheimers actually started singing the songs from memory.

I also began teaching ice skating, a lifelong passion, to children and adults. I learned how to give back and in that giving, I started to heal.

What’s the most rewarding aspect of being a creative in your experience?

The most reward aspect of being a creative is that I never stop learning, educating myself, or asking questions. My father was that way. In his 90’s he started learning the Russian language and was reading about quantum physics! I hope I have that mental capacity and drive as I get older.

Also, the people in my orbit, fellow creatives, have kept me motivated, engaged and inspired.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.laurapursell.com
• Instagram: @laurapursell
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/laura.a.pursell
• Youtube: @LauraPursell
• Other: Link to lyric video for “Three Miles from Christmas Eve”:
  https://youtu.be/4ZayPmb1hc8?si=Mu3XYfqMR5QVffTG

Image Credits

Joe Howell, Katerina Kim Podell, John Johnson